The changes announced yesterday to the Leaving Cert timetable may be less than the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin wanted - but still represent a most welcome reform. The new timetable reflects some of the complaints made by over 100 students during a lengthy post-exam consultation with the Minister last summer. Some described how they had spent up to 28 hours in the exam hall during the first week. Many recalled how their concentration began to waver by the end of week one because of mental and physical exhaustion.
The reformed timetable should help ease this burden. Instead of being "frontloaded" in the first few days of the exam, many of the "heavier" subjects are spread evenly throughout the first week. Students will no longer be required to take two challenging and diverse subjects like French and history on the one day. Every student can look forward to enjoying at least one half day free of exams during the first week. It is a sensible and long overdue reform.
But the difficulties that the Minister encountered as she set about reforming the timetable scarcely reflects well on the wider education system. Over the past year, there has been the definite sense that the Minister was pushing ahead with these changes without much in the way of support from the school management bodies or some in the teaching unions. For some, the push for exam reform was seen as presenting all sorts of logistical and other problems for schools; there was rarely the sense that the student interest was being given due priority.
In this regard, it is disappointing that the Minister's plan for a " two-tier" Leaving Cert has still to win the support of the management bodies. Ms Hanafin would like to see the "unseen" paper in English taken in May in order to ease the burden of the June exams. But her efforts to push through this reform have been frustrated by the school management bodies, who complain of the huge logistical pressure this will place on schools.
But what about the students? Is there any reason why the examination of unseen texts in English and indeed in Irish need to be delayed until the first week in June? A two-stage Leaving Cert, as envisaged by the Minister, would free up much of the first week of the exam. It would give students the very best chance of doing themselves justice, instead of suffering cramp and exhaustion. Surely, that should be a guiding principle for all involved in the preparation and management of the exams.